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Please Don’t Make Me Play Barbies

So let’s be honest here…there are some pretty undesirable parts of parenting that we all must endure. There’s the daily dousing in any number of bodily fluids. There are loud, obnoxious toys that will invariably come to life when you are trying to creep out of a sleeping baby’s bedroom. Oh, and don’t forget stepping on torture devices also known as Legos. (Yes, each of these did, in fact, happen to me today.)

But ranking right up there (er….down there maybe) with these other least favorite parts of parenting you’ll find playing Barbies in my list. We don’t use the “h word” in our house, so instead I’ll say that I despise, loathe, and detest this obligation as a mom of a four year old girl.

I had an indifferent attitude toward Barbie as a kid. I owned one metal cookie tin’s worth of Barbies, and my favorite was by far the astronaut. She had a purpose. But my Barbies spent most of their time crammed in the tin in the bottom of my closet. I much preferred my Cabbage Patch doll, Legos, and a Ninja Turtle or two.

My quam with Barbie isn’t the typical body image complaint that most moms get worked up about. I’m sure one day it will be a deal, but right now that kind of stuff isn’t on Chica’s radar. For me the problem with playing Barbies is the script. See, the writer and director of our play, Chica, is seriously in need of some new material. Every single time we play, it’s all about getting married. The director feeds me one line at a time that I must recite. There’s no use trying to use a little artistic license and veer from the script. We must do it her way.

This afternoon she woke me up from my oh-so-sweet Sunday afternoon nap to invite me to play with my not so favorite toy. Grrrr. More than anything I didn’t want to get out of bed yet, so I agreed to play if it meant I didn’t have to move from my cozy spot. She liked that idea, and so the torture began. When we got to the part in today’s edition of Let’s Get Married that involved red stuff dripping from Ken’s eyes, I decided this story had to be recorded for your reading pleasure. Here’s a recap of today’s saga…

As always, the story begins with four desperate Barbies, each begging the prince, Ken, to marry her. He gives an emphatic, “No,” to each one, but the Birthday Princess Barbie somehow catches his eye enough to give her a second chance. He again says, “No,” explaining that he is too young to get married, but in the end he just can’t resist her. It must be the hair.

So he agrees to marry her and invites Birthday Princess Barbie over to his house to play. They play an exciting game of tag followed by hide-n-seek. The prince invites Barbie to lie in his bed and look at the stars, but Barbie (played by me at that point) just isn’t ready for that step in their relationship yet. So the prince and Barbie play more tag instead.

All of a sudden, the prince gets too tired and hot, and red stuff starts dripping from his eyes. (Seriously…where does she get this stuff?!?) Barbie, who is more practical than sympathetic, of course insists that he clean it up. The prince, being a spoiled mama’s boy, calls his mom in to clean up the mysterious red liquid. Mom seems not at all surprised and agrees willingly.

Time passes and the prince tires of Birthday Princess Barbie and her predictable games of tag and hide-n-seek. He decides that he doesn’t want to marry her after all. He wants to marry this one because, “She’s gooder.”

Birthday Princess Barbie responds in the only way she knows how. She gets mean. She determines she’s going to be the, “Queen of all princesses,” no matter the cost.

The prince’s wedding to the “gooder” girl begins, complete with an elaborate wedding march song hummed by Chica. Birthday Princess Barbie can’t take the sight of losing her man, and she crashes their wedding. “Marry me!” I am forced to beg. (Here’s where a little artistic license sure could have livened up the story a bit. There are all kinds of words Birthday Princess Barbie could have used to describe a girl who would show her crack on her wedding day. I digressed. Sorry.)

When crashing the wedding doesn’t work, Barbie tries her last tactic…manipulation. She begins to sulk and then cry, and surprisingly the prince is much more sympathetic than I would have ever been. He embraces her, and her kiss makes him realize that Birthday Princess Barbie is truly the girl for him. He says, and I quote, “I haven’t finished the wedding meeting yet, so it’s okay.”

At this point I am actually the slightest bit interested to see if the happy couple will face any retaliation from Gooder Girl. Regrettably I don’t get to find out, however, because a farty noise making, crawling ogre enters the room. Yeah, Bubba woke up from his Sunday afternoon nap, and he couldn’t resist getting in on the action. Playing Barbies with an eight month old is even less fun than playing with a four year old, so I am thankfully rescued from my misery….until next time.

Maybe next time I can convince Chica to let me be the screenwriter. When I’m in charge, Birthday Princess Barbie won’t meet Ken until she’s had a chance to figure out who she is without him. She’ll befriend Gooder Girl and they’ll go on all kinds of adventures together.

When they are parasailing in Rio, Barbie and Gooder Girl will meet Ken and his equally smart and handsome twin brother, Kip. No jealous drama needed. After a long courtship (which doesn’t involve any smooth, “Let’s watch the stars,” lines from either guy), they’ll get married in a double wedding right there in Rio and live happily ever after. Oh…and Gooder Girl gets a new dress by then.

12 thoughts on “Please Don’t Make Me Play Barbies”

HAHAH! I am laughing so hard over here. Especially the “It must be her hair” and “crack” lines. When I am forced to play and I try to give my own “lines,” the boys get really mad at me: “No MOMMY!” Then I suddenly have to do the dishes. Good luck at the next wedding…..maybe “Gooder girl” will get her man next time.

Great retelling of Barbie and Ken’s adventures! When my daughter (5 yo) asks me to play Barbie, they are always sisters or mother/daughter and they do nothing but be mean to each other. For the most part though, she doesn’t play with her babies much. Maybe I need to introduce a Ken to the mix.

Loving your blog. Brings back fond memories of loooong ago days. A small device called “needle and thread” will take care of the cheek exposure problem in about 60 seconds flat. You can use it as a teaching moment as you “expose” Chica to a new skill!